Refueling Peace is one of the many anti-war groups that has sprung up over the last year. They have defined themselves around a very specific purpose, to "monitor and stop US military flights refuelling in Ireland". The information gathering aspect of this is proving essential in moving the Shannon refuelling issue to the centre of the Irish anti-war movements.
Refueling Peace is one of the many anti-war groups that has sprung up over the last year. They have defined themselves around a very specific purpose, to "monitor and stop US military flights refuelling in Ireland". The information gathering aspect of this is proving essential in moving the Shannon refuelling issue to the centre of the Irish anti-war movements.
The web site starts with an "invitation to anyone who would like to join a direct action campaign to end Ireland’s participation in Bush’s so-called "war on terrorism". It includes an oddly appropriate quote from the arch reactionary Edmund Burke that "Nobody made a greater mistake than s/he who did nothing because s/he could only do a little."
This sets the general tone, for as well as providing a lot of useful information on the warplanes using Shannon, it provides a ‘Rough guide to spotting military use of Shannon airport’. This is intended to help anyone take part in the monitoring activity at Shannon and helps you spot the apparently civilian planes chartered to transport troops as well as identify the more obvious military ones.
Given the persistent rumours that warplanes are also landing at Knock airport this guide would be useful to anyone in the Mayo area able to put in a few hours observing Knock. Many of the reports listed are the page are actually on Irish Indymedia which is useful as it means you can read the comments other people have made on them.
On the downside, at the time of reviewing, the site was missing links to the various anti-war movements in Ireland. It could also do with some sort of chronological list of military planes spotted at Shannon. But these quibbles aside this site is a ‘must visit’ for anyone opposing the war in Ireland.
First published in Workers Solidarity No73, November 2002.
Website reviewed is no longer online but is archived at http://web.archive.org/web/*/refuelingpeace.org
WORDS: Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )